News : Guitar Jam raises funds for Dollars for Scholars

Todd Frank of Vinton, center, plays with some friends during the annual guitar jam Saturday.

Todd Frank sings a song he wrote about pioneer cemeteries.

For Saturday's guitar jam fund-raiser for the V-S Dollars for Scholars program, the singers and musicians chose some of their favorite songs to share their feelings about places and people that impacted them.

For Todd Frank, that meant pioneer cemeteries.

Frank sang a song he wrote after visiting some of the oldest cemeteries in Benton County:

"The first names aren't familiar, but the last names are the same

As the people that I know now, work work these lands today"

Frank was one of many to play in the jam which featured musicians from throughout Iowa as well as neighboring states. The annual event includes many people Frank has met through guitar forums on the Internet. Many of them refer to the event in Vinton as the "Idiot Jam," in reference to Frank's nickname in their forum: The Village Idiot.

Other performers included Castle Ridge, a trio that performed recently in Vinton, at the Cobblestone Inn.